You were in a hotel.
It wasn't anything special, and you could hear everyone walking through the hallway, as well as the couple upstairs arguing, but it was a hotel, and there was even a proper bed. One with a mattress, not a little thin mat placed on a metal frame.
There was even a flat screen TV, and Dabi let you choose what was on, probably in an attempt to lift your spirits after he'd forced you to open up earlier, so you were sucked into a movie, perched at the end of the bed with your mouth hanging open as Dabi scrolls through his phone.
It's quiet between you both, but it's a comfortable silence.
"F' ya sit that close to the screen, you'll get square eyes." He comments eventually.
"No I won't." You deadpan, shooting him a look, but moving back anyway, not wanting to do anything that will make him change his mind about looking after you.
He smirks, looking at you through his eyelashes. Sometimes when you were a little braver about what you said to him, he'd smile or laugh like he enjoyed it, sometimes he even looked proud when you got a little shirty with him.
"Ya never seen someone with square eyes, kid?" He asks.
"No." You frown.
He raises his eyebrows at you, still smiling, before leaving his question hanging in the air, going back to reading something on his phone.
You try to ignore what he said, trying to focus on the movie, but his words get into your head the second you remember you had actually seen someone with square eyes once, and had simply put it down to some kind of quirk at the time.
With a little huff, you scoot yourself back so your backs against the headboard, sitting right beside Dabi, close enough to feel the heat coming off him as he sits casually scrolling through his phone, only a slight chuckle leaving him when you move even further from the TV.
Towards the end of the movie, you end up beginning to doze off against Dabi without even really realizing it, your head resting on his arm as your body begins to slide down the wooden headboard.
He freezes at first, but quickly relaxes, allowing you to continue resting against him. He's nice and warm, the heat that comes off him constantly lulling you into a feeling of comfort that you'd never had before. He wasn't bony, like mom was either, so his arm was comfortable to rest on.
You were close to completely falling asleep when Dabi gave you a gentle shake, bringing you back around again.
"Huh?" You ask sleepily, sitting up again and rubbing your eyes.
"If ya sleep now, you won't later. Plus, I want you to do somethin' for me." Dabi says, blunt and to the point.
You pause, giving him a look of distrust. It was just you and him, no-one else around like in the shelters. If he wanted to go against your rules, he could, and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
"What's that look for?" He asks, raising an eyebrow. "Ain't nothing bad, trust me. Jus' curious about your quirk, kid."
You frown a little.
He really had seemed interested in your quirk earlier, too. And the attention to it was something you were really unused to. It wasn't exactly flashy like some of the quirks your old classmates had, and you were banned from using it after making mom and one of her boyfriends sick. You weren't allowed to use it outside, either, so you never really learned much about it yourself.
"What about it?" You ask, frowning and rubbing your eyes even harder, trying to clear your vision.
"How long does it last?" He asks. "The sickness, that is."
"I... I don't know." You reply, still a little confused and disorientated.
"You can't just turn it off?" He questions.
"No..."
"Why?"
You're being asked way too much way too quickly and your brain begins to shut down while you come around fully again.
"I never learned how..." You reply slowly, looking around at your environment to try and ground yourself again. You'd been in a comfy doze moments ago and now your brain was being picked about a subject matter you didn't really know too much about either.
This answer doesn't seem to please Dabi at all, his thin eyebrows pulling together as he looks down at you.
"Your parents never taught you how to use it?" He asks in disbelief.
You completely shut down at the mention of parents, moving your attention back to the TV and your face setting into a completely blank expression.
It was a new reaction, but it was better than immediately bursting into tears.
You both sit in silence for a little while. If the silence is awkward, you aren't really able to pick up on it, staring through the TV rather than actually watching whatever was going on on the screen.
After a while, Dabi gives you a gentle and playful nudge with his elbow.
"Use it on me."
You immediately look at him in horror. "What?"
"Use it on me. Think of it like trainin'." He says, a wide grin pulling at his mismatched face.
"But I don't want to make you sick..." You reply, already feeling guilty about it, despite not having done anything yet.
"I'm askin' for it." Dabi shrugs. "I'm a grown man, I can handle a little dizziness."
You're still clearly uncertain, looking away from his intense blue stare. You get the feeling he's not going to drop this. Something about your quirk seems to really have piqued his interest, and as much as you wanted to enjoy the attention, it wasn't quite the same as having your drawings fawned over.
"Alright, alright, I'll tell ya the truth." He sighs. "Can ya look at me, Star?"
You slowly, and cautiously, turn your face to look at him. He'd never asked you to look directly at him before. Whatever he was going to say must be important, and you couldn't help but feel a little nervous about it.
When you look at him, his face is set in stone, his eyes cold and serious as they bore into your own.
"Can I pet your hair?" He asks, his voice a little sterner than usual.
This was worrying you. Dabi could be serious, sure. But he was usually playful, and a little goofy. He had never really used a stern tone with you before, because you'd never given him a reason to.
You nod anyway, hoping him ruffling your hair like he so often did, would make everything else feel a little softer too.
He lets out a small sigh, his hand placing itself on top of your head, and instead of ruffling it in his usual way, his palm slides down your hair gently.
"Look. If this thing with Shigaraki pans out..." He pauses, seeming to think over his next words carefully. "We'll have a place to stay, food to eat, an' money. But it'll be dangerous."
His expression sets into a more solemn one as he looks down at you, his hand moving from the top of your hair to the bottom of your hair again.
"I gotta know you got some kinda defense. In case... somethin' happens to me."
Your bottom lip wobbles slightly, surprising you. The idea of losing Dabi as well as everyone else you'd already lost... That just threatens to send you over the edge again, like you had earlier. You'd thought you'd run out of tears to cry after that, but you can feel them brimming in your eyes again now at the sheer idea of being left alone again.
"None'a that now." He says, his jaw visibly clenching under the ruined skin there as his hand strays from off your hair to cup the side of your face.
Not even mom had touched you that gently before.
"What would happen to you?" You can't help but ask. You didn't want any surprises, not like when you'd woken up to mom. If you could brace yourself for pain, maybe that'd make it hurt less when it inevitably happened.
Dabi goes quiet for a second, looking down at you with that same solemn expression as he cups your face in his hand.
"Well. I ain't exactly the picture of health, hon." He jokes, weakly, although his tone doesn't carry the same sarcastic undertone it usually did when he joked like that.
You stare at him.
If you were going to be included in his future plans like he seemed to be serious about doing, and if you were seriously going to follow him to whoever this Shigaraki person was, which was apparently now dangerous, you wanted to stop being treated like a kid. You wanted to be told the truth. No beating around the bush.
He holds your stare for a while before his shoulders drop.
"Fine. What I'm gettin' into... It's not gonna be pretty, Star." He murmurs. "But it's for the good of society, ya know?"
You stare at him, still waiting for him to get to the point.
"You know Stain?" He asks, moving so that you're both eye-level with each other.
You shake your head, not recognising that name at all.
Dabi seems to think carefully again, letting go of your face finally. You're a little thankful, the heat coming from his hand was beginning to make your face a little sweaty and you didn't wanna sweat all over him.
"He believes in real heroes. Not the fake ones we got runnin' around at the moment." Dabi explains, the explanation seeming very blunt and simple. "Y'know. The ones that let kids like me an' you wander the streets without helpin'."
A flash of something crosses over his face. It looks between a flash of pain or anger, it's gone so quickly that you can't really read it properly.
"Shigaraki wants the same thing... kinda." Dabi explains, sounding like he was wording this carefully again. "Wants to destroy the whole 'hero' thing, and sort out how the world is. Y'gettin' me, Star?"
"He wants to change the world?" You ask, testingly.
Dabi chuckles. "Startin' small with Japan for now, kid."
"For the better?" You ask, trying to wrap your head around what Dabi was telling you.
Dabi simply nods his head.
"If it's for the better, then why is it dangerous?" You ask, confused.
Dabi sighs. "Because people in power don't like losin' their power. Ya get me? They got their money, their holiday homes, their little fuckin' dollhouse families-"
His eyes widen before narrowing and pointing at you.
"Five. No swearin'. I don't wanna hear you repeat what I just said."
You smirk. That was the first time a proper cuss word had passed his lips in front of you, and knowing how passionate he was about the subject he was talking about to forget about the fact he didn't allow himself, or others, to curse in front of you.
This was almost enough for you to take his word as gospel. People weren't this passionate about things that weren't true, after all.
"So the heroes might hurt you? For trying to change Japan?" You ask, making sure you're understanding him right.
"That's right, kid. You got it." Dabi says with a small smile and a nod, but the smile is quick to disappear. "But listen, where we're goin', might be a little scary. Okay?"
You look away for a half second, thinking about his words.
He was warning you that it might be scary. Mom never warned you about her boyfriends being scary. And she never warned you about the injections that made her sleepy or sick being scary, too.
"But, I'm gonna be there. An' no-ones gonna mess with you while I'm standin'. You got that?" He says firmly, petting your hair once more, his hand staying on the back of your head. "I'll look after you forever, remember? 'Til I drop dead. So you don't gotta be scared. 'Kay?"
He says it with such conviction that you can't help but immediately trust every word that falls out of his mouth, nodding as much as you can with the weight of his hand against the back of your head.
"Attagirl, Star." He says, with a genuine smile that seems to reach his eyes.
It's a nice change from how serious he'd been throughout this entire exchange. He seemed more like himself again. You didn't like the serious aura he was giving off mere moments before, and you'd almost panicked when he said it'd be dangerous.
But even within the short time of knowing each other, you knew he really meant what he said. Not a single bad thing had happened to you since you'd been with him. He seemed to scare off the other people on the streets that you had problems with before. You were eating more regularly, sleeping in safer areas, and he was nice company, too, even if you weren't saying anything to each other.
"Now, hit me with ya quirk, 'kay? Wanna see what we're working with here." He says, patting each side of his chest with his hands.
"I don't know, Dabi..." You reply with uncertainty. It really had made the two people you'd used it on before seriously sick, and you didn't want to make Dabi poorly when he'd done so much for you, and continued to do so.
"C'mon." He urges, gently grabbing your wrist, taking a brief moment to check you were okay with the contact before placing your hand on his shoulder.
You think about it for a second, before reminding him that you cannot turn it off by will and that he'll have to ride it out until it's over, only to have him roll those azure eyes at you.
You grimace a little, but behave, activating your quirk, and immediately feeling guilty when his eyes widen and his face goes green almost instantly.
"Yup, know that feeling all too well." He says, his voice strained as though he was holding himself back from throwing up. "Congrats kid, it's vertigo."
He gets up from the bed, swaying as though he was on a violently rocking boat, the pale expanses of skin on his face turning even greener and a thin sheen of sweat appearing over his face as he does so.
"Gonna be in the bathroom, kid. Knock if ya need anything that doesn't mean I have to move, 'kay?"
He starts stumbling towards the bathroom, and you reach towards his back as he does so, feeling horrendously guilty for him as the bathroom door shuts and you hear him vomiting.